Pages

Saturday, 21 April 2012

France 2012: The road to Élysée

Tomorrow, France will
decide its representatives from a list of 10 candidates. The majority will
receive a combined vote of less than 10%. Two weeks ago, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was
part of that majority and yesterday night I went to Place de la Republique, the central area in Le Mans, to see a large screen
displaying a live speech by the Left Front candidate. A few weeks ago,
Mélenchon was barely mentioned; he wasn’t making enough noise to capture the
attention of the French public. Yet, yesterday, there was a larger crowd than I
have ever seen gathered in the little square.

Mélenchon has managed
to garner support from around the country, while taking somewhat radical
positions. One of his major arguments is that there needs to be greater wealth
redistribution in France; as President, he would place a 100% tax on earnings
over £300,000. He also
speaks about the failure of neo-liberalism, and lambasts European leaders for
their inability to deal with the economic downturn - a sentiment which Nobel
Prize-winning economist Paul
Krugman has endorsed (though I'm not entirely sure he would agree with all
that Mélenchon has to say!). This, coupled with claims that Sarkozy is a candidate of the
rich, ensures that Mélenchon is providing a distinct voice; incidentally,
Sarkozy did not help to refute this claim when he put away his €55,000 watch before shaking hands with supporters, inspiring rumours
that he feared it might be stolen).

What’s more, although Mélenchon may
appear to be a fringe candidate, with no real chance of victory, he has
certainly caused a stir. While many citizens had previously planned to abstain,
and submit blank votes, Mélenchon has given them an outlet for their anger. He
may not become President in 2012 but he will have left his mark; in 2017 he
will reappear with a stronger campaign and with a population that has had five
more years to think about his ideas.

On the opposite end
of the political spectrum, the far-right National Front (FN) candidate Marine
Le Pen competes in her first presidential elections. Her father Jean-Marie,
rather worryingly, found himself in the second round of the presidential
elections in 2002 after a large number of the electorate voted for the FN as a
protest vote. He fought his final elections in 2007, when he received under 11%
in the first round.

According to the leader of the National Front youth group, Julien
Rochedy, a vote for Le Pen is a "young and rebellious vote". In a blog post, he writes why he believes that young people are
voting for Le Pen, pointing towards the unemployment rate for under 25s (a staggering 25%), the fact that young people apparently feel that there
is an erosion of French culture and want a stronger national identity, and,
finally, the notion that young people just don’t want to vote like their
parents.

While Le Pen’s vote
amongst youth appears high, polls currently put
her in third place at around 16%.
She should not be underestimated however and the events of 2002 remind us to be
wary of the polls. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that she will cause too much
disturbance on Sunday and President Sarkozy’s far-right policies will have done
enough to appease her voters.

Certainly, current
President and UMP candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has been reaching out to supporters
of the National Front since the last elections and has continued this in
office. In May 2010, the Green MP Nöel Mamère criticised the banning of the
niqab (which Interior minister Claude Guéant called “a walking coffin”),
declaring that the UMP were pushing the issue for the wrong reasons, and were
instead making the “rallying of FN voters
a priority”. When he
pushed for the law, Sarkozy insisted that it was to protect women who were
forced to wear it by husbands. One year later, of the 300 women fined, two-thirds have been
single or divorced and they
appear to have been wearing the garment by choice.

While it seems he has
appeased many far-right voters, his record in power is still rather grim. Unemployment
rose from 7.9% in December 2007 to 10% in February of this year and the Tepa
law, which meant that France’s richest would never pay more than 50% in tax,
has lead to a redistribution of
€84bn in tax cuts since he was
elected.

With François
Hollande still above him in the polls, Sarkozy is now resorting to distressed
tactics; on 12 April, journalists were invited to photograph and video
the first few minutes of a meeting
with the US President Barack Obama. During these two minutes, Sarkozy could be
heard telling Obama: “We will win”. Hollande’s camp responded quickly,
proclaiming it a “desperate move”.

Yet, truthfully,
these are side issues. Unfortunately, a large amount of Hollande’s support has
not been due to his policies but rather the failure of Sarkozy. I have had
similar conversations with a number of teaching colleagues and they always say
the same thing: “I’ll probably vote for Hollande. Not because I like him, God
no! He’s just the best of the candidates.” A retired statistician speaking to
the Economist puts it more succinctly: a vote for Hollande is “more a rejection of
Sarkozy”.

Come Sunday, it is
almost certain that Hollande will be among the two frontrunners heading to the
second round. Can Hollande really win an election based on the “rejection” of
his opponent? Hollande is fully aware of this and has already started his
preparations. While barely heard at the beginning of his campaign, he now talks
about the I-word; Hollande has promised an annual parliamentary
debate on how many immigrants are needed for each industry and has assured the electorate that there
will be an “unrelenting fight” against illegal immigration. With public
finances a major issue among voters, he will most certainly push his manifesto promise to reduce the
deficit to 0% of the GDP by 2017.

If Sarkozy is his
opponent, the battle will be fierce. Sarkozy came out very strongly after the attacks in Toulouse, demonstrating a tough stance on law-and-order and
displaying admirable statesmanship, unifying the country in a difficult time.
He is also adamant that
Hollande’s lack of government experience (a fear expressed by many) will be telling in the live
national television debate. Meanwhile, Hollande, the affable nice-guy, will continue to play the role of the ordinary Frenchman,
a position Sarkozy has tried, unsuccessfully, to fill.

It’s worth noting
that the last time Hollande debated against a French President, even if Chirac
hadn’t yet become President, Hollande’s humour lead to him being sprawled across the
front pages of newspapers.
He also had time to learn under the wing of former President Francois
Mitterrand, himself described as a politicial genius. Perhaps the tipping point will be that Jacques Chirac has
not said he will support his protégé, Nicolas Sarkozy, but instead that he strongly supports
François Hollande and will be
voting for him.

These elections have
provoked much discussion and debate; France has not seen a left-wing President
in nearly two decades and Hollande is in prime position to be that man.
Mélenchon has also brought more radical ideas into the fray, and while he may
not make it to the second round, his supporters – the supporters Hollande wants
to attract – will demand that Hollande listen to them.

2 comments:

I don’t even know the way I finished up right here, however I assumed this publish was great. I do not realize who you are but definitely you are going to a well-known blogger in case you are not already. Cheers!